Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day007.06
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20
MR IRVING: "I found it unimaginable", yes, why not, "I found
it unimaginable that he could proceed on so vast an
enterprise without obtaining his master's approval". To
put it the other way round, you imagined that he did
obtain his master's approval, Professor Watt? Is that
so? Is that what you are saying? You imagined that he
must have obtained Hitler's approval?
A. I assumed that, given his character, he would have at
least thought he had Hitler's approval.
Q. Yes.
A. The difficulty in dealing with Hitler is that he himself
defines secrecy in four different categories, the top one
being ideas that I have not myself finally resolved, and
the next one being ideas that I do not communicate to
anybody. Then there is the James bond like category, for
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your eyes only, or, as Germans say, between four eyes, and
then there is the normal category. It is in that area
where the absence of evidence to my mind, it is a
historical challenge but I do not think that it is
conclusive in the way other people have assumed it is.
Q. Professor Watt, I do not to labour the point too much
because, of course, it is well known that in my
biographies of Hitler I have accepted that after October
1943, after Himmler's famous speech at Posun, the way
I put it is that Hitler had no excuse for not knowing.
Would this be a perverse reading of the situation, that he
had no excuse for not knowing from that time on? He could
not really get away with saying, I did not know what was
going on? Am I wrong in suggesting that?
A. The difficulty is that Hitler's theory of the state,
anything that was done in the state was done in his name.
He would justify it retrospectively if he did not know
about it. This is an area, I am talking here not having
done the kind of detailed work which is in front of the
court on this, and I am simply producing a judgment based
on the work I have done on Hitler ----
Q. Professor Watt, if I was William Showler writing a book
about the rise and fall of the Third Reich, then quite
clearly this was Hitler's fault, this was Hitler's
responsibility. But, if you have a student who is writing
an examination of Adolf Hitler's personal responsibility,
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which is germane to the issues before the court, then you
do come up against a bit of brick wall as far as
acceptable evidence goes. You really have to start using
what you yourself call your imagination. You imagine that
Hitler probably, you cannot imagine that he did not, and
this kind of thing, and that is very dangerous, would you
not agree? It is a dangerous kind of basis. Imagination
is a picking on a particular word I used here because
I was trying very hard to present a review of your book,
which did not descend into denouncing it as being contrary
to what everybody knows.
Q. Mr Rampton, do you wish me to read any more of that
paragraph?
MR RAMPTON: Yes. It would save me from doing so.
MR IRVING: "For myself, I found it initially not unpersuasive
until I reflected on the character of Himmler"- this is
yourself writing, Professor Watt. "I found it unimaginable
that he could proceed on so vast an enterprise without
obtaining his master's approval. Heydrich would have been
another matter. There are very large areas in which we
have only the slenderest of indications as to what was
going on in Hitler's mind. Like Roosevelt, he said
different things to different audiences but, like
Roosevelt, he committed nothing of his own thoughts to
paper. In such circumstances inference is a
legitimate
historical method." Is that enough, Mr Rampton?
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A. Then I go on to say "But to infer Hitler's ignorance,
to
assume that Himmler and his minions went beyond the
limits
of what Hitler had approved, seems to assume something
inherently improbable and out of keeping with all we
know
of Himmler's relationship to Hitler". What I am
getting
at there is that again, as in so much of this
biographical
approach, there is a kind of build your own Hitler,
build
your own Roosevelt, build your own Himmler, out of
kits
which are supplied.
Q. There are different images. There is the Madison
Avenue
image.
A. My feeling about Himmler was that he was a man who was
almost incapable of originating anything himself
unless he
had what he thought was approval from above, that he
was a
man who was dependent on approval of those whom he
idolised.
Q. Professor Watt, Himmler's brother actually told me the
same. He said, I cannot imagine Heinny would have
done
this on his own. He said he was a bit of a coward. I
think I mentioned this also in my books.
A. Towards the end, he began to lose confidence in Hitler
and
he became open to the sort of arguments that were
advanced
by senior SS officers, the belief that the Allies
would
make a separate peace with him and so on, and he
reached a
point where Hitler believed that he was being
betrayed,
and there is an expression of his disbelief at this.
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Q. But that is another story, as they say. Can I draw
attention to the fact that the passages we read out
were
written by you in June 1977, in view of the fact that
23
years have passed and still no document has come to
light
to shake the notion which you considered at that time
inherently improbable, would you consider that my
notion
has become slightly more sustainable?
A. I think I would be reluctant to change my mind about
that. What I should say, however, is that the
challenge
that you then raise to the historical profession.
Q. The thousand pound offer?
A. I was not thinking of money. I was thinking simply of
the
challenge of putting forward the sort of views you did
and
basing them on historical research, rather than
ideological conviction, or at least seemingly so, has
directly resulted in an enormous outburst of research
into
the ----
Q. Holocaust?
A. - into the massacres of the Jews, into the Holocaust
and so
on, which is now so large an area of historical
research
that it can support journals, it can support
conferences.
I see that there are three scheduled in Britain this
coming year and that I myself am appearing in one in
America in March. This, I think, is a direct result
of
the challenge which Mr Irving's work and the
consistency
and the effort which he has put into maintaining it in
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public, has resulted in somewhat similar ----
Q. Would you describe my notion as being perverse? Would
you
use that kind of word to describe it?
A. This is an argument about nominalism. I think that it
is
perverse in relation to the values of western society,
as
I understand them. I do not think it is perverse,
speaking as a historian. I have seen more perverse
arguments put forward, for example the gentleman who
maintained that Stalin hardly killed anybody, who held
an
academic post of some importance in an American
university. I gather that he has now changed his mind
as
a result of being shown the KGB records and is editing
a
book which is hastily changing his position.
I think to maintain that America entered the
Second World War as a result of the machinations of
British security authorities in New York is perverse.
I think that the views that Stalin was about to attack
Hitler when Hitler attacked Stalin, which is a view
that
apparently commands a certain amount of support in
America
and Germany and Israel, is perverse.
There are areas of perversity and indeed the
late Alan Clark's support for an eminent British
historian's views that Chamberlain could have made
peace
with Hitler in 1937, and that somebody else besides
Churchill have made piece with Hitler in 1940, I
regard
these as perverse. There is a lot of perversity
about, if
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one is to use that word in historical terms.
Q. I hasten to say that those are not the issues that are
before the court, Professor Watt?
A. I know, but one has to put this kind of argument, it
seems
to me, in the general context of what historians, I
think
Professor Evans and I share views on the
responsibilities
of historians to tell the truth as we see it, and to
be
extremely careful and professional in our use of
evidence,
but I cannot say that the evidence that we both
confront
in the writing of history generally altogether lives
up to
those expectations.
Q. Professor Watt, from what you know of my writings, do
you
believe that, if a document were now to be presented
to me
tomorrow morning in one of your plain brown envelopes,
utterly confounding me in the issues that are before
the
court, I would hesitate for one moment to bring them
to
the attention my readers and that I would in some way
suppress them, or do you believe, on the contrary,
that in
fact I would make them known immediately?
A. I have no knowledge myself of times when you have
suppressed evidence. But then our paths have not lain
together very often.
Q. We are nearly at the end of this examination-in-chief,
Professor. You wrote a review, you may remember, some
years ago of my biography of Herman Goring for the
Sunday
Times?
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A. Yes.
Q. It was the principal review in the review section that
week as indeed most of my books were reviewed very
prominently in my hey day. You began the review with
the
words which I shall never forget, "David Irving is one
of
Britain's most disliked historians but ..." Do you
remember writing those words?
A. I have not looked at that cutting recently, but I find
it
quite likely that I wrote it.
Q. Quite likely that you wrote it! You did not of course
stand in Oxford Street with a clip board asking the
passers-by who their most disliked historian was, so
this
was just a subjective value judgment?
A. I think so. That would be fair comment.
Q. It is not, of course, a historian's job to be liked,
is
it?
A. I do not regard the public's general view of
historical
facts as something against which one cannot appeal.
Q. Professor Watt, would I be wrong in suggesting that
the
reason you used that sentence was because, on balance,
you
proposed to write a very favourable review of the
book,
which in fact it was, but you needed to purchase the
right
to so by saying something wicked?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have the review. I think it will
speak
for itself. I do not think that is a helpful
question.
MR IRVING: It is in connection with the next point, which
is
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why I have had to issue a witness summons. I see your
Lordship wagging your Lordship's head.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Watt was not anxious to come
voluntarily. That must be the reason. There is so
much
we have to deal with, I just wonder whether those
points
are worth struggling with.
MR IRVING: In that case I will end the examination at that
point. Professor Watt, thank you very much indeed.
MR RAMPTON: I have no questions.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Watt, thank you very much
indeed
for coming.
< (The witness withdrew)
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you want to pause to collect your
thoughts, Mr Irving? If you did, I would understand.
MR IRVING: I think a five-minute pause might be
acceptable.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the transcriber would welcome
that.
MR IRVING: Then how are we going to proceed, my Lord?
With
the argument or continue with the cross-examination?
I would propose, if I may be so humble as to submit,
that
we should have the argument after lunch.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am prepared to fit in with whatever you
would prefer, unless Mr Rampton tells me that is going
to
be very inconvenient.
MR RAMPTON: I have only one more evidence point that I
want to
deal with before I start on Auschwitz. I was going to
start on Auschwitz today, not unless your Lordship
tells
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me I must, on the technical stuff, but on Mr Irving's
own
utterances about it.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: So Holocaust denial rather than Auschwitz.

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